Long story short, my girl is bringing over her '80 244 DL for me to fix. It's very much a project car, but it runs well. Like most females however, she is more concerned with how it looks inside then how solid the engine is. Oh well.

A few questions, Someone added a tach to the car, but it doesn't work at all. The wire runs to the coil, but there is no tach life. I'm thinking that the tach just isn't getting power, which is the same reason that the temp gauge doesn't work. The gas gauge DOES work however.

I've encountered the opposite before (temp gauge works, but not the gas gauge), but not this. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I haven't really been able to comb though the archives as much as I'd like, but I'm sure someone will know the answer.

The car also has a somewhat poor idle, i.e. it will stall after you start it if you don't give it any gas. First, I'm going to see if it runs any better after I disconnect the O2 sensor, and if I get that tach working, I'll check the base idle, but then what should I do?

Thanks as always.

Hey HTTY,

Is the cold idle problem your having only on COLD STARTS or whenever the car idles, (e.g. Cold & Warm Starts). I swear that I have been chasing a cold start idle problem with my 79 264GL for a good part of 3 YEARS now and I had away's thought that I would just have to live with it. My car (on Cold Starts) would start up fine (Thank You Cold Start Injector) but would idle +/-500RPM's after about 10 seconds. I would by then be trying to get on the road to warm up the car as fast as I can. Yesterday I took apart the CPR and cleaned it per instructions and help giving to me by the Brickboard and now the car will idle at about 1500 RPM's when cold and stay that way for about 5min till the CPR heats up and raises the Control Pressure. At that time the idle drops to the 900/950 mark and stays there. I never thought the inside of the CPR could get plugged shut but mine did. Being that the 80 240 you will be working on should have the K-Jet system I would give this a try. Let us know how things work out. Good Luck!

Sincerely,
--
Nickvjr

1979 264GL B27F 121K

Features Added:

Central Locking System, 25mm IPD Front Sway Bar, 81+ Dash W/ Oil & Ambient Temp Gauges In C, Oil Pressure, Volts

Next Project:

Add Cruise & BW55 Swap To A M46

If the gas gauges works approximately OK, then the VR is not at fault. (I think an '80 240 uses the metal can vibrator type VR, not the black plastic solid state type VR.)

The temp gauge mounting nuts must be tight.
The temp gauge itself must be OK.
The temp sending unit must be OK.
The wire to the sending unit must be OK.

You can check the gauge by connecting a 100-200 ohm resistor to the sending unit wire, other end to ground. The gauge should read somethingorother. Or just ground the wire, the gauge should peg (toward the hot).
--
Don Foster (near Cape Cod, MA)

I am not sure but I think the tach, fuel and temp ground after they go past a regulator in that car... that regulator just might be 2 prong metal box on the back of the instrument cluster, or a 3 prong black chip.

On my car that chip like deal effected the dash lights and made me nuts, the tach, the fuel and the temp gauges.

After removing the circuit board and not a little board like newer cars have since mine is a 85, I found clearly one leg of the 3 on that chip unsoldered..

After that it worked well for 1 year, and is upto it's old tricks.. I did have a look and can't see a thing wrong with the soldering. I have found that I can either reach back there and push it, or push on the instrument frame and it works if it wants too.

So I believe the chip needs to be replaced at this point, as it must have break internally, and appears to be temp sensitive.

One thing you might do is check the wire at the coil to the tach for current, and then ground the other terminal on the tach directly and see if the tach works. I can't recall which numbers are which just now to hook the tach to, and it is darker than I'ld like to go see, but you would want the side going to the dist to hook up to. Mac

"my girl is bringing over her '80 244 DL for me to fix."
How did you manage to find a girlfriend your age (I'm assuming your age) who also drives an '80 Volvo? Not an easy thing to do, in my opinion.
--
1980 245 Canadian B21A with SU carb and M46 trans

Easy. She needed a car, and I found a volvo for her.

She's a pretty bad driver, so I figured that safety is of extream importance.

It was either going to be her's, or I was going to get it for my dad to replace our '77 244 (Her's has a M-46, my dad's has a BW35.)

Now, I just need to teach her how to drive a standard tranny... somewhat challenging because she gets mad when she stalls the car and then starts yelling at me for saying it's her "fault" the car is "broken."

Soon enough, she will be past the stalling phase we all went through learning how to drive a stick. At least, I sure hopw so.

You better not allow her to find this place or yer dead meat son! Waugh!!!

pretty sure at 52 I can get away with callin you son too ;) Mac

the gauge thing, i dunno but it could lie in your dash circuit board. electronics confuse me in my old age( 24).

The idle....Hmmm I have been chasing poor idles for months now (about 13) and here are the things I would check

1- all air intake hoses incl. vacuum for cracks, holes or leaks, even a minor one can throw it off.
2- AMM, unplug with keys out, then start up see if it runs any different, if so that may be your culprit. DO NOT plug/unplug with keys in, you may fry it.
3- your ICV may need to be replaced, this is common on high mileage cars like volvo's. you can try to spray some carb cleaner in it to keep it from sticking, and I have heard of people taking them part way apart and cleaning them, but you would be better off with new if this is the problem.
4- check the temp sensor, a bad one can keep the car from running/idleing properly. I think Bentley shows the resistence values to test it.

The O2 sensor does not actually do anything until the car is warmed up to operating temp, so a start, stall would not indicate to me the O2 sensor.

That is what I have.
Good luck
chuck

Tach problem: Which terminal at the coil is the wire connected to? Should be on #1. That one already has a wire, either white or white-red. Look closely at the coil, the terminal numbers may be visible.

Temp gauge is designed so that if the wire to the sender is grounded, gauge reads full hot. If yours just lies there dead zero, the wire may be disconnected. Look on the block, left side, under the #2 intake manifold rail. Yellow wire.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)